Propaganda when Nobody is Looking

America and NATO’s war in Afghanistan has continued for almost 17 years now, and hardly anyone is paying any attention. There was much fuss and excitement over the dropping of the so-called “MOAB” on an Islamic State camp on April 13th of this year. Apparently it takes the dropping of a massive bomb to get the citizens of our country to pay attention. What has gone generally unnoticed is the generally poor showing of Afghan National forces and the remaining NATO troops against the resurgent Taliban.

In the much contested Helmand province, the center of many bloody fights over the last decade and a half, the Taliban recently seized the city of Sangin. After withdrawing from the town center the press office of the NATO mission tried to claim that the town wasn’t lost, but that the town center was moved. This is a lie. It would be an injustice to call it “spin” or up-to-date information. This kind of blatant lie should alarm those nations which have a stake in fighting in Afghanistan.

They can only get away with this because no one is paying attention in the first place. But what does it say when the military lies to the public to cover a loss? Questioning American participation in wars is an old habit, generally of the political left, but when those in charge of making life and death decisions for American soldiers begin to actively lie to the public about what is going on everyone should begin to question their nation’s participation in that war. “What’s the point of being there at this point anyway?” There are many reasons, but these have not been deemed important enough to tell the American public in any sort of serious, visible, or coherent way.

NATO and the government of Afghanistan need to make a deal with the Taliban, that is clear. Fighting an unpopular, ignored, and limited war will never lead to any kind of measurable success.

I met an Afghan man and we discussed life under the Taliban. He told me that the Taliban was popular because they were more likely to be honest and just than the secular government. “You cannot bribe the Taliban,” he told me. Dishonesty and a lack of justice, aided and abetted by NATO, are what makes the Taliban attractive and powerful, even if they are brutal totalitarians. For that reason, NATO should find a way out instead of trying to increase the number of soldiers fighting there. Lies cannot win wars alone, and if the war cannot be won by soldiers either, then it should not be fought.

Narcissism, Democracy, and Comey

On its face, it may seem that Donald Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey was perpetrated as a way to hinder the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russian intelligence services to win the election. I believe this is incorrect. Alternatively, it may seem that Comey’s dismissal was the result of poor and inconsistent handling of politically sensitive investigations. I believe this is also incorrect. Comey was fired for a simpler reason, he was becoming famous and not submitting himself to Donald Trump.

As a political calculation it is hard to justify the firing of Comey, knowing that it will likely have the opposite effect to that which was intended. Firing Comey will put pressure on Congress to ask for a special prosecutor and has the effect of making Trump look guilty.

The stated justifications for Comey’s firing are also nonsensical. Trump and his administration are clearly not upset that Comey was too easy on Clinton during the email investigation (especially not after the letter announcing a reopening of the investigation days before the election). It would only make sense to fire him now after revelations that he misstated some facts during his recent testimony before congress – but then firing was clearly planned before that testimony.

Trump’s narcissism overwhelmed good political sense. Outraged by Comey’s failure to be obsequious and obedient in the media, while at the same time making more and more public appearances, Trump’s ego would not allow a Comey to continue on as the director of the FBI.

As a trait, narcissism is beneficial to one’s career in modern American democracy. Certainly some level of egomania has always been present in every political regime to ever exist, but it is particularly well-suited to the constant campaigning and competition of our current system. Trump’s narcissism helped get him elected. His arrogance and shameless self-promotion make for good television and entertainment. Arrogance and shameless also insulated him in debates and made hijacking the spotlight easier. With his narcissism he was able to lie unthinkingly and repeatedly to the electorate and make outrageous promises. These same traits, risible in private life and advantageous in self-promotion and campaigning, are widely shared amongst other prominent American politicians – to a degree.

Barack Obama certainly had some degree of arrogance and ego, enough to think he should be the leader of the most powerful country on Earth. He also probably believed in his own legend; the media hype that enveloped him from his first announcement may have warped his view of himself and his ability to an extent. But Obama would never have made such a short-sighted political move to placate his envious ego. Obama, Bush, and Clinton may have made poor decisions out of arrogance, even poor political decisions. Comey’s public appearances, and refusal to say what Trump wished him to, may have been an irritant to the three previous presidents, but they never would have risen to the level of being able to wound their egos or to override larger political calculations.

Here we have a perfect example of how Trump is uniquely dangerous in the office of president and how he is also weak in the office of president. Trump just made a grave political error in firing James Comey, and he did it at the behest of his wounded pride. A man with that much power, who makes decisions based on his thin-skinned vanity, may make dangerous decisions on a whim (such as using military force or calling for radical political change). However, being so bogged down in the minutiae of his ego likely means that the fears of progressives and liberals that he will be able to radically alter the American system of government are unfounded.

Anyone so absorbed in preening and guarding their ego does not have time for the messy political processes of making serious changes to government or public policy. It is apparent that Trump has ceded foreign policy to the generals in his administration while ceding domestic policy to the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader. He spends his time looking for cheap photo-ops and obsessing over his media coverage.

It was widely known and reported during the campaign that Trump was thin-skinned and seemingly unaware and uninterested in the actual difficulties of governing. James Comey’s firing has exposed the gap between the “healthy” narcissists who may have preceded him as President and his own petty, all-consuming narcissism. While his ego may have helped him win office, it will also destroy the effectiveness of his administration.

Chris Christie’s Hilarious Ploy

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie immediately seized on the only thing he could find less popular than he is. After the United Airlines incident where a passenger was beaten and dragged off of an airplane because he refused to leave to make room for United employees, an incident which tanked United stock and lent itself to viral videos and internet outrage, Chris Christie sprung into action.
Christie was recently polled as the least popular governor in the nation after a disastrous year of criticism for his role in the “Bridgegate” scandal and declining performance reviews in his home state. Hoping to jump on top of the pile, he sent a letter to Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chou asking for the federal government to review regulations that govern airlines. He has since gone on to give interviews, like with the “journalists” on Fox & Friends, on the subject of how terrible United Airlines is and how poorly they treated that passenger.

It should be immediately obvious to everyone that this is a naked ploy to beat up on an unpopular company and industry at an opportune moment. Christie, who one can imagine sitting in his office, scanning youtube and facebook for viral videos, saw this as a way to burnish his reputation. Such a pathetic display of opportunism (as opposed to atttempting to regain the respect of his constituency through good governance) should be condemned. He should not be given a platform to piggyback on a viral incident of outrage for his own benefit – to make it seem like he’s standing up for the little guy.

Christie had a reputation (fair or not) for truth-telling, bipartisanship, and toughness. Now he has a reputation for vindictiveness, vanity, and cynicism. We can add to this dishonorable list a penchant for exploitation and opportunism.

The Anglo-German Naval Arms Race and Edward Snowden

100 years ago the United States entered the first great modern military catastrophe. Unfortunately it would not be the last. There were many, many factors contributing to the First World War, but one of them was a naval arms race between Germany and Great Britain.

As a rising power, Germany saw a strong navy as a deterrent to Great Britain’s ambition and as a way to expand their own Imperial ambitions. As for the British, they had a policy of having a navy larger than the other two largest navies combined. Tremendous strain was placed on the British industrial capacity and government funding when the United States and Germany both put their industrial might to use on their burgeoning naval fleets. Germany never did quite catch up to Britain before the war started, but they came close, and they came close for one reason: the British switched their ships’ fuel from coal to oil.

In an instant the new classes of oil-powered warships made all other warships obsolete. The British and German navies began at the same point because they both possessed the same technologies. Germany strove to produce as many new oil-powered warships as quickly as they could. In turn, the British attempted to do the same in order to maintain their superiority. Intensifying the arms race destabilized the world. Feeling pressured, the British became increasingly prepared to use force to counter the Germans and the pressure for decisive military confrontation to defeat the other side increased.

When reviewing the Anglo-German naval arms race as a historical precedent, it is easy to see how Edward Snowden, and other leaks of the United States’ technical ability in cyberspying and cyberwarfare, have made the world less safe.

Leaks from the NSA, and now the CIA, revealed both advanced methods and means of attacking computer networks. Every other major power in the world now has the ability to do exactly what the NSA and CIA have the ability to do. This inflames a cyber arms race that was already raging. United States intelligence agencies now have increased incentive to strike other powers harder and more often preemptively than they had in the past. Other powers may now have abilities to seriously damage or infiltrate US assets that they could not in the past. A wider range of actors have the ability to do more damage than they did previously.

Snowden, and others, may have sparked a debate in the United States about how much the government should be monitoring citizens, but in the grander view, the leaks have made all citizens less safe.